Pietro

A young man who hails from near the Vesuvius, with a spontaneous and wide smile who learned his trade at the court of the “sacred cows” of international cuisine such as Ducasse and Marchesi. After a number of prestigious experiences in Italy, France, Switzerland and in Burj al-Arab hotel in the United Arab Emirates (one of the most luxurious of the world), in 2005 he has found his way back to the Campania region to open his own restaurant, “Era Ora” (“It was about time”).
The ace up the sleeve of this young “farmer cook” is the great technique applied to the produce of his land.

i boccaccielli

These are specialties representing the culinary tradition of the Campania region, offered in single portions in glass jars. Boccaccielli turn food into a discovery, a surprise. These are simple dishes that are vacuum cooked in steam. Ingredients are strictly seasonal and local, with no carbon footprint. They are able to combine style and practicality into some sort of very creative finger food from the Campania region.
They are nothing less than little big traditional flavours.

faces

What really makes Pietro special is his search for seasonal products, which he personally selects from his farming friends, in the quest to support local workers and products.
Pietro aims to remove the large distributors from his kitchen, and to replace them with small, local farmers, in order to shine a light on the sacrifices made by these men and women. He wants to raise awareness of healthy ways to produce and process food, by bringing back the good traditions that should never be a privilege for the few.
As Pietro says, “cooking is culture, not just manual labour”; his relationship with the farmers, the chance to see their faces, is a valuable input in his path-finding search.

Pietro, the lad from Mount Vesuvius

Pietro is passionate about juggling flavours and fragrances connected to his childhood. The smell of his grandma Nannina’s ragù, which on Sundays filled his house right from seven in the morning; the meatballs in a sauce of San Marzano tomatoes, not to mention the pasta shapes called “candele spezzate” (literally: broken candles) in a genovese sauce, obtained with white onion puree and stewed veal. Core to his cooking is often the re-use of what is normally considered waste. Peels, stems, leaves are given a new lease of life by Pietro.

“By upbringing and education I am opposed to any waste, because it is often in the less noble parts that the true flavours hide.”

the restaurant

Pietro Parisi has been running his restaurant-taste laboratory “Era Ora” since 2005, aiming to add his land to the map of good food.
170 seats in Palma Campania, not far from Naples, an area previously cut off from the circuit of good food.

Nowadays, “Era Ora” serves on average 150 meals a day, 6,000 meals a month; it offers traditional and contemporary cuisine at the same time. The creations based on “poor” products with zero carbon footprint and on the use of material often considered to be waste offer a unique experience of flavours and fragrances.